By professor Mballow social and political analyst.
(3832552)
The people of the Gambia have taken a decision. The game is over and it was between the ruling NPP party and the opposition UDP party.
The UDP won in Banjul, KMC, West Coast and LRR while the NPP won in Basse, Kuntaur, Janjanbureh and Kerewan. The results of this election have clearly demonstrated that people are frustrated with the difficult living conditions they are facing in this country under the ruling NPP party. To some of them, they are disgruntled with the weak services the ruling NPP continue to showcase. To others, they showcased their grievances against the ruling NPP party on how they rule the Gambia by paying deaf ears on their plights and not providing them with the projects, policies and programmes they needed.
For the NPP party to recover from this heavy defeat and shock, it must start working within its power to bring real developments for people to see and feel but not only based on lip services. The party executive need to be reshuffled completely and put up competent and experience figures to steer the activities of the party but not the sycophants and opportunists who only follow their interest and not the nation’s interest. The NPP party has been surrounded by people who only see and follow their own interest and not the nation’s interest. The party must practice what they preach and change their way of politics. The NPP party must regulate its internal operations as well as strategize its external activities if the party wants to survive again.
For now, one can boldly say that the NPP is a provincial party for the simple reason that the provincial people voted for it because they have been promised developments if they vote for the party. Now that the provinces, specifically CRR, NBR and Basse have voted for the NPP. The question should now be, will they see and feel the developments they have been promised from the ruling NPP party?
For the opposition parties in this country, they have started strategizing their ways of operations by forming tactical alliances among them. This can be clearly seen in the case of UDP where GDC, NUP, Alagie Tabora Manneh, Bachilly, among others backed up the UDP candidates in this election. There is a foreseen unity among the oppositions because they want to save the citizens from their deteriorating living conditions, depleting resources and lobotomizing economy.
From my Interviews with people, these are some of my conclusions:
1. They accepted the fact that some NPP candidates selected to contest against the oppositions were not good and they did not deserve to win the election. They were not people’s choice.
2. Some electorates held the notion that if they do not vote for the opposition candidate, they were still going to win and they don’t want the ruling NPP party candidates to win.
3. Other group of people believed that it does not matter who their party candidate is, as far he is representing their party, they will vote for him whether he is good or bad.
It is very unfortunate that most of the people have never voted for a candidate because that candidate is the best among the lot but they based their voting on emotions, affiliation and hatred. The voting of a candidate based on emotions will only benefit the politicians and their close associates and not for the general masses.
My observation:
From independence to date, there are state institutions in this county that have not been providing any service to the people and this is not the condition people wish to live forever. People want developments and better living conditions.
Note: power belong to the people. Our destiny as a nation, lie in our own hands . Nobody from outside can come and develop us but it is our own very selves. As politicians, start thinking of developing people if success is to be achieved.
The Gambia is faced with a lot of problems that any sitting government that fails to deliver must go. The issue of corruption among government officials, the public financial embezzlement, the weak health sector, the weak Agriculture sector, the weak education sector, the weak trade and employment sector, the weak performance of all other sectors are the root causes of Gambians voting massively against the ruling NPP party. Unless these issues are resolved, Gambians will continue to vote against any party that presides the affairs of this country.
